


Unexpected

by JestersTear



Series: Freedom, And The Lack Thereof [2]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prison, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 08:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JestersTear/pseuds/JestersTear
Summary: Cullen and Maxwell Trevelyan shared a prison cell for three years. They shared quite a bit more than that - Cullen thought, at one point, that they sharedeverything. But then Cullen was released and Max told him in no uncertain terms that he meant nothing. Two years later they meet again, old hurts bubble up and the truth comes to light.





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up today with a prompt for the dragon age kink meme in my mind. But the prompt is far too detailed and that, along with how slow the kink meme has been going and how unpopular this pairing is, leads me to believe it might never be filled. The final scene (or close to it) wouldn't let me go, though, and I had to write it.
> 
> I'll more than likely never write the entire thing - I'd have to research a good bit about the inner workings of a prison, to begin with, and I have Of Hurt And Hope to finish, along with Restless and its following parts, before I dive headfirst into a new project -but this scene had to be written. If you're curious, the entire prompt in all its overly detailed glory, is in the author's notes at the bottom.
> 
> As always, comments, reviews and criticisms are an author's bread and butter.

“And what’s it to you,” he whispered viciously, angry at Max for prying, angry at himself for still harbouring feelings for someone to whom he was nothing, “how I choose to live my life?”

Max closed his fists in frustration, looking as if he’d like nothing better than to punch him. Cullen almost wished he would - at least there would be some satisfaction in punching back. Leliana would have his head for causing a scene, though. And he didn’t really want to cause Max harm. The fight drained out of him as a wave of exhaustion settled in. He just wanted to get through the night so he could go home and sleep.

“This is _not_ what I gave you up for,” Max growled, the effort to keep his voice low making a vein pulse in his neck.

“Gave me up? _Gave me up_??” Some people looked their way and Cullen lowered his voice again. He felt that Max might as well have punched him in the gut, for reducing all that had happened to ‘giving him up’. Fury temporarily replaced his exhaustion. “You did not ‘give me up.’ You had no issues with telling me the truth to my face at the time; no problem letting me know I was nothing but a convenient hole for you to fuck.” The vulgarity was beneath him but he _wanted_ to be crude. “I believe your exact words were ‘a tight ass and a pretty face.’ Your bitch. _Nothing_.” His voice cracked. He hated that his voice cracked. “And _now_ you decide to gloss it over as ‘giving me up’? Leave me be, Maxwell. Just leave me be.”

Max’s vein stopped pulsing and he deflated, looking smaller. There was a vulnerability in his blue eyes that Cullen had never seen, not even during the years he thought they meant something to each other. Cullen was twice the fool for still loving him, but there it was.

“I told you what you needed to hear, Cullen. This isn’t what you were supposed to have done with that freedom.”

“What I needed to hear? You will forgive me for failing to understand how you could have thought I needed to hear any of that. You could… You could have told me you didn’t want us to continue any other way.”

No anger in Max’s voice now. “I told you what you needed to hear so you’d walk away with no regrets. So you wouldn’t be tied down to a man with no future, to a relationship through a glass for decades. What life would that have been for you? I gave you up so you’d _have_ a life. You were supposed to be married and with a baby by now. You were supposed to be happy. Not… _this_.”

Cullen’s heart did a strange painful flip, as if it were trying to beat for the first time in years. He wanted to speak, but he was afraid to ask the question. Terrified of the answer. For the past two years he’d felt nothing but weariness and a pervasive sense of sadness; now it was as if every emotion were rushing back, vying for a place of dominance. He didn’t know how he was finding the strength to stand under the weight of terror and hope intermingled.

“Did you… Was it… What you said… Was it untrue?”

Max placed a gentle hand on his cheek and Cullen fought to draw breath. If this was a cruel joke, if… If the other man was setting him up to laugh in his face again for how gullible he was, it might just kill him. But right now he didn’t care if it did, just for the possibility that Max had cared.

“Of course it was untrue. I loved you. From early on in our… arrangement, I loved you. So selfishly that a part of me wished you weren’t being released. You meant the world to me, Cullen. But I couldn’t let you waste your freedom on a fool’s hope that I’d be cleared.”

 _Loved_. _Meant_. Past tense. Cullen didn’t try to stop the twin tears from making their way down his cheeks. Let the world see him crying in uniform, let them titter and gossip, he didn’t care. He’d had everything, and he’d lost it because of his willingness to believe the worst. He didn’t know if it was better or worse, to know the truth. He wondered how poor form it would be of him to draw Max in for a kiss, just one more kiss, so their story would have a better ending.

“You could have let me make that choice. _My_ choice. You took it from me.”

“I did. And it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, Cullen. But I didn’t trust you to choose what was best for you. You were supposed to be happy by now.”

Cullen let out a humourless laugh, the overwhelming pain sharper now than it had ever been, even that afternoon on the day of his release, when he’d stood helplessly listening to Max’s cruel words.

“And yet here we are. Was it worth it?”

“I thought it had been, until I saw you today.”

“How long?”

“How long what?”

“You said you loved me. That I had meant the world to you. How long ago did that stop? How sooner would we have had to have met for it to have made a difference? How long ago did I lose you?”

Max’s eyes widened a fraction. He came closer, hand still on Cullen’s cheek, thumb brushing one of his errant tears.

“You’re not an easy man to forget, Cullen.”

“How long?”

“It hasn’t happened yet. I was trying to protect myself even now, but you deserve the truth. You could snap your fingers and I’d be there. I’m still yours. You still mean the world to me. I still love you. So if you’ve been consumed by wanting to get even, now is your chance.”

Cullen knew on a somewhat detached level that this was the moment where happiness should overtake him. Max was here, right in front of him, telling him he loved him. It was straight out of his every waking dream for the past few years. And yet all he felt was oppressive, sticky, cloying fear in his lungs.

“Get even? I… don’t.”

He didn’t know what to say. And then - very slowly, very gently, very reminiscent of that first night when he’d done it, months after they’d started their “arrangement” - Max placed his lips on Cullen’s for just half a moment. Cullen’s breath stilled completely, but it was already over.

“Thank you. Now that you know the truth I hope you can let it go. Go find a life for yourself instead of an existence. I never realised that what was meant to set you free would hold you back from finding someone again. I hope it won’t from now on.”

Cullen opened his mouth - to tell him something, _anything_ , preferably how much he didn’t want to move on if Max still loved him - but no sound came out. Max stepped back with a smile that was overflowing with sadness.

“I don’t think I can stay. I don’t care if they planned to formally apologise for having stuck me in that place to die, pin a medal to my chest or whatever it is the Chantry meant for this to be, but I’m done with this place tonight. Tell your Leliana I’m sorry for not sticking around.”

He turned to leave with measured steps, looking for all the world as though he were trying very hard not to break into a run. He probably was.

Cullen’s heart beat erratically and he took two large steps that easily amounted to five of Max’s measured ones, gaining ground, but he still didn’t know what to say. The music faded and, just before it gave way to a different song, Cullen snapped his fingers in the temporary stillness, the sound echoing louder than it had any right to. Max turned abruptly, looking straight at him, lips parted as he sucked in a breath. Cullen advanced even more rapidly now, coming to a stop already inside Max’s personal space. He was still having trouble with words.

“Don’t. Stay. _Please_.”

Max swallowed again.

“How long?”

“I love you. Tonight. However long you want. Forever.”

They’d been in a secluded corner before. It might have been possible that their earlier half kiss had gone unnoticed, since they hadn’t been raising their voices at the time and the more gossipy portion of the guests had moved on to more interesting prey. But right here, in front of everyone, just on the edge of the dance floor? There was no one who wouldn’t see. And he cared exactly not one whit about any of that as Max lunged for him and pulled him closer, no hesitation or restraint in his kiss now.

“Forever? I could live with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Modern AU with magic works best for this, I think, but I’m open to all verses if you can make it work.
> 
> Cullen went to prison for his actions in Kirkwall. The fact that he was suffering from PTSD from the aftermath of Kinloch Hold, and that he was under the influence of combat drugs (ie lyrium) have reduced his sentence, but he still needs to do a couple of years at least. Quite a few inmates have it in for him (some are mages, other are relatives, perhaps?).
> 
> my!Trevelyan (going to use “Max” in the prompt, but any name will do) is doing a heavy sentence for the explosion at the conclave and, unlike Cullen, the other prisoners give him a wide berth (fear of the anchor, perhaps?).
> 
> They’re cell mates, relatively civil to each other, and Cullen takes comfort in the fact that at least his cell mate doesn’t want to kill him or worse. Cullen gets a few unpleasant encounters in hallways, narrowly avoiding terrible fates, and realises he’s not going to make it on his own in there.
> 
> Despite always having thought of himself as straight, he asks Max to have sex with him - if it’s going to happen anyway, and he’s realised by now that it will, he’d rather ease into it of his own volition, with someone of his choosing. He didn’t expect Max’s gentleness, or that he’d enjoy it. He certainly didn’t expect Max to circulate the rumour that Cullen was his and no one could lay a hand on him. Max says he shouldn’t be so surprised - if Cullen is offering his body then Max will be offering protection.
> 
> They carry on like that for the duration of Cullen’s sentence. They grow close. Max eventually confides in Cullen that he was framed, but he’d rather let the other inmates believe he did it and is an insanely dangerous man than a patsy. Cullen falls completely in love, and it breaks his heart a little every time, when they finish and Max tells him to go back to his own bunk.
> 
> The end of Cullen’s sentence arrives. Just before leaving he tells Max that he won’t rest until he proves his innocence, and that he’ll be back to visit him as frequently as he can. Max laughs in his face. Tells him he won’t take his visits - Cullen was nothing but a tight ass and a pretty face and, now that he is being released and can’t be putting out anymore, he’d do better to get on with his life, because Max is going to find himself another willing bitch and get on with his.
> 
> Cullen is crushed. Despite everything he devotes his time to proving the other man’s innocence - Max may not care for him, but Cullen loves him, and he’d at least see him free and his name cleared. It takes him a year or two but he succeeds. Max has no idea that it was Cullen who found the evidence.
> 
> One day they meet by accident somewhere where neither can walk away. Maybe the equivalent of Empress Celene’s ball? And Max is stunned to realise Cullen has been surviving more than living. He has a good job now, he’s free, and yet he seems to just be going through the motions, no real spark, no one to share his life with, nothing. He’d been more alive in jail.
> 
> They get into an argument and Max lets slip that that isn’t what he gave Cullen up for. Cullen is bitter and quick to reply that he didn’t give Cullen up, he moved on to find another willing bitch. And Max eventually admits that he meant nothing of what he said - Cullen was being released, Max had decades left to do, and he hadn’t wanted Cullen to be tied down to a relationship with no future. Even the making Cullen leave his bed after sex was designed to protect him - it was one thing for the other inmates to think Cullen was Max’s bitch, quite another for them to realise Max loved him.
> 
> Cue happy ending.


End file.
